


An Old Married Couple

by My_Alter_Ego



Category: White Collar
Genre: Domestic Bliss?, M/M, Proprietary Issues, Questionable Compatibility
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:09:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24180361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Alter_Ego/pseuds/My_Alter_Ego
Summary: Peter and Neal have taken to cohabiting, and that entails a bit of an adjustment. Just a light short fiction without too much of a plot and definitely no sex.
Relationships: Peter Burke/Neal Caffrey
Comments: 7
Kudos: 49





	An Old Married Couple

Peter and Neal had just pulled up to June’s imposing mansion. It was the end of an all-night stakeout for them, and the two partners trudged tiredly up three flights of stairs to Neal’s loft. Satchmo roused himself from sleep and ambled over to give them a cursory lick and a half-hearted tail wag before returning to his dog bed in the corner. The animal was a new addition to the premises because Peter had been staying with his CI these last several months since Elizabeth had taken an apartment in Washington DC and embarked on a new, exciting career. At first, she had returned on occasional weekends, but now her time was taken up with a myriad of new challenges and responsibilities that her lofty position entailed. As a result, her visits to her other home in New York and her lonely husband had waned. Peter was happy for her and surprised when she suggested that he might be less lonely living with Neal. This wasn’t idle innuendo on her part. Elizabeth was savvy and knew exactly what she was allowing, but she was never one to be jealous. She knew that Neal was a good person and she trusted him with her husband’s affection.

Having now finally reached his cozy sanctuary, Neal shrugged out of his suit jacket and tie and flopped down on the bed. “I am beyond exhausted,” he exclaimed dramatically as his eyes immediately closed.

Peter was busy refilling Satchmo’s water bowl. “Yeah, sitting idly all night in a cramped car waiting for the sun to rise takes it out of you. It makes my joints ache, especially when it’s raining. I’m getting too old for these all-night-a-thons. Just give me a second and I’ll be joining you.”

It didn’t take but a minute for Peter to toe off his shoes, unravel his rumpled tie, and remove his own jacket. The mattress sunk down a bit as he, too, lowered himself onto the bed and stretched out beside the younger man. After a brief lull, he asked half-heartedly, “Wanna fool around?”

“Nah, I’m too tired to move a muscle right now,” Neal yawned.

“Okay. That’s just as well because I have one of my sinus headaches,” Peter murmured in a faint voice echoing with fatigue.

It wasn’t long before the only sound in the room was the pair’s deep, sonorous breathing. Neal had turned on his side, but when Peter’s snoring reached a crescendo, he stretched an arm around to poke his bedmate in the ribs. Peter snorted and flipped onto his stomach with his own arm snaking out to jerk the blanket and sheet with him. Two semi-aware men played tug of war for a few seconds until at least part of their torsos were buried under the covers. They stayed that way for the next six hours.

Having done their due diligence and taken their turn in the surveillance line-up, they arose early the following day and got ready for a normal 9-5 shift at the office. It was always a juggling act in the small apartment, especially in the bathroom. It was a tiny compact space with only a modest oval mirror hanging over a single washstand. Neal and Peter always tried to coordinate their dance moves around each other as both attempted to shower, brush their teeth, and shave at the same time. That wasn’t always a successful endeavor. Occasionally, errant elbows got in the way. Neal’s recent shiner could attest to that, and he had scrambled to come up with an explanation that would fly in the office.

“Peter hit me,” he exclaimed jovially to his coworkers because that truthful statement would surely pass for a flippant joke.

Of course, Peter’s team didn’t believe that accusation for a second, but it didn’t stop Diana’s snarky response of, “Well, you probably deserved it!” Jones was sagely nodding in agreement. Neither junior agent was aware of the new domestic arrangements on Riverside Drive and Neal wanted to keep it that way.

“This bathroom just isn’t cutting it,” Peter groused yet again that morning. “I don’t have a place to put even the barest of my essentials because your hair products are lined up like soldiers in parade formation.”

“Tough,” Neal snorts. “I was here first and this is my apartment, so deal with it, Peter.”

“Well, there’s an easy fix for that,” Peter reminds Neal. “You can always move into my house.”

Neal looked at Peter dolefully. “Yeah, sure, that will work out so well when the Marshals watching my anklet want to know why I’m staying over, night after night. I don’t think you can spin that and say we were reviewing a lot of old cold cases.”

Neal then took himself to his walk-in closet in search of his favorite suit. When that proved fruitless, he accosted Peter on his way to the kitchen. “You forgot to pick up my charcoal pinstriped suit from the cleaners, didn’t you,” he said accusingly.

Peter looked like a deer in the headlights for all of two seconds before going on the offensive. “So, sue me! I’m not infallible and, occasionally, the seriousness of my job as a Federal Agent takes precedence over remembering mundane things like dry-cleaning.”

After an expansive eyeroll, he couldn’t help but add, “You do know that I had this same ridiculous fight with Elizabeth.”

“Believe me, I remember,” Neal retorted. “And now I can appreciate how much it pissed her off.”

Peter continued to glare, so Neal turned away mumbling, “All I asked was for you to do one little thing …”

Peter wasn’t going to allow this disrespect to go unchallenged. “Do you mean like the way I asked you to do one little thing for me, Neal? You were supposed to pick up a new bottle of Tums when you stopped at the drug store,” Peter declared in an antagonistic tone. “You said you _forgot_ , but I distinctly remember writing it on the list—condoms, mouthwash, toothpaste, and _Tums_.”

“Well, I remembered to get the most important things,” Neal said in his own defense.

“Antacids are important, too!” Peter roared. “You know all that Indian food that you favor has tons of curry and it gives me gas!”

“I certainly _do_ know that because I’m in the same room as you during the evenings,” Neal replied cynically.

When Peter gave Neal a flat stare, his young partner continued with his tirade. “For the life of me, Peter, I can’t fathom how a man who can wolf down spicy hot wings with abandon finds it so hard to digest a benign Oriental spice. Curry is actually good for you with anti-inflammatory as well as antioxidant properties.”

“You are neither my doctor nor my mother, Buddy, so don’t lecture me about my digestion,” Peter quipped.

“I’m just sayin’ that maybe you need to take better care of your health,” Neal replied smugly.

“And I’m just sayin’ that you’re becoming a nag,” Peter said impatiently.

“I’m your current house husband, so that’s my job,” Neal taunted.

“Zip it, Caffrey,” Peter said with an authoritative air.

~~~~~~~~~~

The drive to the office was spent in petulant silence. Neal didn’t say a word criticizing the abrupt jarring stops and starts on the New York streets. He got his point across by grabbing the “Save Me, Jesus!” strap above his door when Peter slewed perilously around corners or cut off the occasional taxicab. When both men strode into the bullpen, Peter peeled off to walk up the stairs to his glass cubicle and Neal headed for the coffee machine. Diana was already there and watched her co-worker pour two mugs of java, then begin rummaging in the small refrigerator. “Whatcha looking for, Neal?” Diana asked curiously.

“I was hoping there was some low-fat milk in here,” Neal replied to her question.

“Caffrey, you already look like a beanpole, so why are you worried about calories?” the female agent wanted to know.

“Oh, I’m not worried about me. I’m making this for Peter and it’s his cholesterol level that I’m concerned about,” was the puzzling answer.

“Okaay,” Diana drawled while giving Neal an odd look.

~~~~~~~~~~

Later that same day, Peter was standing in front of a white board in the conference room briefing both Jones and Diana about their current case. Neal was twirling around on a chair at the end of the table.

“Now, we know this guy, Rogers, has an agenda,” Peter began. “It’s most likely tied into …..”

“The phony auctions being conducted at that studio on Mulberry Street,” Neal finished Peter’s explanation.

“Exactly!” Peter agreed.

“So, now we just have to do that thing where we ….” Neal continued.

“Right, probably sooner rather than later,” was Peter’s approving answer.

“Do you think …” Peter’s CI began a thought.

“Yeah, most definitely!” Peter said with a decisive nod.

After that succinct exchange, Peter ended the briefing leaving his junior agents shaking their heads in confusion. “That was really eerie,” Diana remarked to Jones when they had returned to their desks in the bullpen.

“Yeah, weird and like totally telepathic,” Jones agreed. “They were finishing each other’s sentences.”

Diana was willing to lay it on the line. “I hate to say it, but they’re acting like an old married couple. One minute they bicker and snipe, then the next minute they start worrying about each other and doing that _Star Trek_ mind-meld thing.”

“I hear ya,” Jones seconded that opinion, “but I guess if it works for them, then who are we to complain?”

~~~~~~~~~~

The best laid plans can always go awry. Maybe that’s a law written down somewhere in the cosmos. When Peter and Neal confronted the Rogers culprit in a SoHo gallery, the trapped man panicked big time. He grabbed Neal, who was closest to him, and, using him as a human shield, pressed a very wicked-looking sculpting knife against his neck. When Peter saw a drop of red blood well up around the pointy edge of the tool, the Federal Agent was like an enraged bull. He charged ahead with a maniacal glint in his eye, and within seconds, he had his own hands wrapped around the foolish perp’s throat. It took all of Neal’s strength to pry his handler’s fingers apart as he kept chanting, “I’m okay, Peter, I’m okay!” Finally, his reassuring words managed to penetrate Peter’s crazed mind and the pressure lessened.

After Rogers was cuffed and Peter had called for backup, he gently pulled Neal close to inspect the tiny laceration. “I’m going to have a doctor check you out, Neal,” he said worriedly.

“Peter, it’s no worse than a shaving cut. Settle down before you have a heart attack,” Neal pleaded. “Let’s just go home.”

~~~~~~~~~~

So maybe it hadn’t exactly been a perfect day for the good guys, but the bad dude was now behind bars in Rikers and two contented men were currently sprawled on the sofa in Neal’s loft after a robust dinner of Italian carryout. Each had a beverage in their hand, either a fine wine or a chilled can of domestic beer.

“Wanna celebrate our win in a sexy kind of way?” Peter said as he comically waggled his eyebrows.

“Sure,” Neal readily agreed, “but then you’ll be missing at least the first half of the Thursday night football game.”

That stopped Peter in his tracks. “Oh, right, I forgot it’s Thursday. Can I have a rain check, Buddy?” he asked hopefully. “I can make it up to you tomorrow evening.”

Neal was shaking his head. “No, that’s not going to work for me. _The Great British Bakeoff Competition_ is on tomorrow evening, and they’re doing complicated fruit compotes and fancy English trifles. I don’t want to miss that.”

“Hey, that sounds tasty. Maybe you can make one for me,” Peter said hopefully.

“If you play your cards right, perhaps that could happen,” Neal teased.

“So, getting back to _us_ and a different kind of interesting encounter in the bed instead of the kitchen—maybe one day this weekend?” Peter mused thoughtfully.

“That might be doable,” Neal agreed, “unless, of course, you have one of your sinus headaches.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll take an antihistamine first, so I’ll be up to the task. Let’s firm that up and make it a date!” Peter said cheerfully as the two men shared a fist bump marking just another spontaneous and romantic night of domestic bliss in the Caffrey/Burke household.


End file.
